Yellowstone Dining

I see all their dining options has….. “Please be advised, dining dates, hours, and menu options may be limited and can change with little to no notice.” You’re probably going to have to call to see if they can accommodate your dietary restrictions.

Pam is our resident expert and will be along to give you more details. But yes, I have taken food, an ice chest, and a one burner Coleman stove, and cooked both breakfast and dinner at the picnic tables in the Old Faithful area. You can’t cook in your room or cabin.

But I don’t know how to find out menu options. If you share what your restrictions re, it’s possible someone can help from recent experience.

In our 1971 one-week camping honeymoon in California, we used a double sterno to heat up our Dinty Moore beef stew and Franco-American spaghetti for dinners. (Breakfasts were rolls or donuts from the supermarket; lunches were baloney or peanut butter sandwiches.) The sterno worked great! And no big fire. A sterno could work for you.
(Aside....we had a $2.00 tube tent and 2 WWII sleeping bags from hubby's grandfather for our "lodgings', and drove all over California in our 1967 VW beetle. Spent $100.00 for the week for gas and campsites and state or national park entrance fees, doughnut replenishments, and the occasional bottle of soda. Water bottles were refilled at campgrounds.....need I add we were starving students at the time?)

I always travel with a cooler in the park as I'm vegan plus I don't want to have to go find something to eat if I'm doing/watching something interesting, lol!!

The menus for the OF Inn are up but the menus for the Canyon area are not posted yet. There are no prices listed online so that suggests they are still having some supply chain issues as they have had the last few years.

https://www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com/dining/

I suggest getting a good cooler (not styrofoam as they are squeaky and leaky, hahaha!) in Jackson and getting BLOCK ice instead of a bag of crushed ice. The block ice lasts longer. The Service Stations in Yellowstone generally sell block ice. There are bags of crushed ice at the General Stores but they do not always have the block ice. For me, the block ice will last 3 or 4 days depending on how warm it is outside. I bring my cooler into my lodging and do cooler maintenance inside my room. I don't dump gray water from the cooler outside as it can draw in critters.

I also use a "system" of 2 XL Rubbermaid containers, one on the bottom to hold the ice block and one on top of that with the food so it doesn't get wet (drinks slotted along the sides). Here is the kind of container I use in case you have any at home. You could easily pack them in carry on, lol, use them for food and ice and then dry to pack and bring back home.

https://tinyurl.com/yc5yfxh7

You can grill in any picnic area or sometimes I have even seen people just pulled off into a lay by with a grill setup. The problem with that is that then you have to wait until the grill cools enough to stow it back in your car. Many use a Coleman stove which cools down quicker. You do have to be able to manage your garbage as you need to clean your grill grate back at your lodging.

I take an electric kettle to use for oatmeal cups and coffee in the AM and sometimes for soup cups in the evening but that might not satisfy others.

There are 3 good grocery stores in Jackson - Albertsons (Safeway), Whole Foods and a local one called Smith's.

When are you traveling?

We are traveling at the end of Sept. Thank you for the insights and tips. Knowing that we can pick up a propane stove and cook in a picnic area is a big relief, blocks of ice is also good advice rather than constantly refilling bags of ice.

Pam - you also helped me with my travel itinerary a few months back, so I am grateful for all your tips! Thank you

Good to know your travel time frame. Some venues start to close in September so it's even better to have a cooler this time of year. MANY years ago before I realized things were closed the end of September I wound up with Red Vines and Wheat Thins for lunch, hahaha. A good learning experience.

I do suggest a little "menu" planning and having a shopping list when you go into one of the grocery stores. I am always impulse driven when I'm in a new grocery store. (insert the eyerolling emoji) There is not a Whole Foods here in N. Idaho so the first time I went into the one in Jackson I came out with a WHOLE bunch of random stuff, hahaha!

Depending on what your dietary needs are, we've had a couple of picnic threads over on Trip Advisor on the Yellowstone forum. The poster thbergs is GF if that's a particular need.

From 2022: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60999-i481-k13961823-Favorite_picnic_meals_and_to_go_breakfasts-Yellowstone_National_Park_Wyoming.html

From waaaayyyy back: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60999-i481-k5493134-What_do_you_like_in_your_picnic_lunch-Yellowstone_National_Park_Wyoming.html

For this time of year I also suggest you sign up for the road closure text messages. The last few years there have not been as many closures in September due to wintry weather but it's always a possibility for an overnight closure if something nasty is moving thru.

https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkroads.htm

There is also an anticipated road closure starting Sept 2 south of Mammoth so the West side of the Upper Loop will be closed for road construction. It will still be possible to get to Mammoth and the North entrance via the East side of the Upper Loop over Dunraven Pass.

editing to add: Just saw your extra post and you are very welcome. The road information might be a duplicate from what I mentioned before so apologies if that is the case.

Great info, so happy to hear that there is a Whole Foods. Lactose free is the biggest concern but I also don’t eat most meats, and a few other things I need to watch out for. Being able to get chicken to pack and other grocery items will help a lot, and packing our electric kettle is helpful for breakfast. We were recently traveling and bought a rotisserie chicken, bagged salads and some other produce, lactose free cheese so it sounds like there will be plenty of places in Jackson to get these items. When we leave Old Faithful and head to the Canyon Lodge, is there a convenient entrance that we can leave the park to restock in a town nearby?

We actually have a propane burner which is great but won’t be able to pack on the flight, I’m wondering if there is anywhere that has Coleman stove rentals or if we can pack our burner and buy a tank and frying pan?

We planned on exiting at the north entrance to Gardner and then head to Bozeman. Do you expect closures effecting this route and do you have ALT route recommendations to keep in mind?

Thanks again, all super helpful!

Looking at a map i see no handy “outside the park” town to restock your groceries, between Old Faithful and Canyon Village.

There is a general store at canyon Village, that will have some groceries

"When we leave Old Faithful and head to the Canyon Lodge, is there a convenient entrance that we can leave the park to restock in a town nearby?"

There are really only 2 gateway towns with decent grocery stores - West Yellowstone and Gardiner. You could go out to West on your transit day. It's about an hour from OF out to the West Entrance or about 30 minutes from Madison Junction out to the gate. (Full disclosure for anyone lurking - there is a small general store in Cooke City out the NE entrance but it's not got much and may be fairly depleted by September's end.)

To get to the larger grocery store, take a right on Boundary St, the FIRST street you come to after you leave the entrance gate (before you get to the stoplight). Take a left on the 2nd street which is Madison and the grocery store will be on your left. I have not been in to this store in years but it's the bigger of the 2 in town.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/uSoFxiKzz8MWz7LWA

The other option is Gardiner which normally would be fine if you were going to do the Upper Loop on your transition day but is not going to be as convenient with the road closure as you'd have to go to Canyon Junction, go north from there and go west across the top of the Upper Loop to get to the North entrance. It's doable if you were planning to do Mammoth that day.

As Joe indicates there are General Stores - one at Canyon and 2 at Old Faithful. The smaller General Store at OF closes Sept 14. I suggest you take a look at what's available at the OF General Store (between the Snow Lodge and the Service Station (they have block ice, lol) and then decide if you need to make a run out to West Yellowstone. The General Store at Canyon is a bit bigger and has more of a food selection but still not as much as a regular grocery store.

Here is a ink to closure dates for various services:

https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/operating-dates.htm

Your exit day will work fine. Just go north from Canyon over Dunraven Pass to Tower Junction and continue on to Mammoth from there. This is the way I would go from Canyon ANYway as it's more scenic to my mind!

We won’t be arriving to YS till later Sept so good to know that the general store will be closed, and these are some options if needed. The potential road closure tip is really appreciated! When I booked I didn’t realize that this was so late in the season. Pam if you or anyone else have any other suggestions to keep in mind for this time of year please let me know. I guess I’ll be packing many layers and cold weather outerwear. We will also be driving RT from Bozeman airport (to Jackson, then from Gardiner) so if you think we need to be aware of other road closures, weather conditions, etc. I appreciate any heads up.

Just the smaller OF General Store will be closed but the larger OF one will be open.

IF you sign up for the road conditions text messaging that should be sufficient. On the Yellowstone Trip Advisor forum one of the other DEs does a road closure thread for the Fall so you might want to bookmark that forum and check as you get nearer to your departure time as well as along the way. You are also welcome to message me although I will be in France, lol.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g28973-i480-Wyoming.html

Thank you again! Enjoy France!

My experience with dinners in the national park restaurants can be summed up as expensive and awful - Bryce, Yellowstone, Death Valley to name a few. Soggy fries, tough, inedible meat, 1/4" burnt sides and bottom of carrot cake covered up with frosting.
We try to buy as much food as possible before we enter the parks. Fill up on gasoline too. As someone else mentioned, electric pot for oatmeal and ramen noodles. Cooler for cold cuts and cheeses for sandwiches plus fresh fruits.

Thanks, yes my experience at Yosemite with the food was awful. All of the advice that I got here was very helpful and I’ll plan on packing a cooler, electric tea pot, Coleman stove. What should I know about gas? If we fill up before going in the park, is it hard to find gas again, and do many gas stations close at the end of Sept?
Thank you!

Regarding eating at Yellowstone, our trip was September 2020 during Covid protocol. Like the others mentioned, our 1 carryout meal from Old Faithful Inn (inside dining was closed) was awful. All other meals were out of our cooler We did enjoy a bread, cheese, wine and fruit picnic 2 night.

There are gas stations in the Park.

The best forum for Yellowstone information that I have found is TripAdvisor. Pam provided the link in one of her posts. Browse the forum and you will get answers to questions you didn't even know you had. Any answers provided by their Destination Experts will be spot on. They know the park inside and out.

"They know the park inside and out."

Hahaha...thank you and yes, we do!

The gas is more expensive in the park but readily available at all the villages as well as at Tower Junction. I generally fill at the end of a day so I can clean my windshield of the day's accumulation of bugs. Unless I am staying at Mammoth and go out to Gardiner to the grocery store, I've not found it worth it to try and run out to a gateway town to fill. The gateway town of Cooke City which is fairly isolated is even higher priced gas-wise than the park stations. All the pumps in the park are available 24/7 with a CC even though the Service Station itself might not be open.

At OF, if you park in the front parking lot of the Inn facing the geyser basin the gas station near there is usually not busy and is a good place to fuel. Canyon has a bigger gas station so is also easy to get in/out of. The only gas station I don't like is the one at Mammoth which is really jammed in and my CCs never work there - no matter which brand.

Food last year was better than it was in 2020 during Covid. The food concessioners were having terrible problems with staffing. Staffing is still an issue but better than 2020 and 2021.

Pam, I've told you before. You and the other DEs made our YNP & GTNP trip a wonderful success. Thanks again.

And yes, I discount all reviews for restaurants, hotels, ... during the Covid era, 2020-22. So my comment of our dinner from Old Faithful Inn in 2020 should be taken in that light. Everywhere in the world was suffering from employee shortages, supply chain shortages, Covid restrictions. So glad that is in our past.

JudeK, your going to have a wonderful trip!

You and the other DEs

Defense Encryption Standards ??????

Joe, based on certain criteria, including knowledge of the specific forum, TripAdvisor designates some forum members to be a Destination Experts. This separates the responders from the riffraff like me. I've been to Yellowstone once and can offer my 2 cents. Pam, on the other hand, has been visiting Yellowstone several times a year for many years. She and the other DEs know the ins and outs of the Park better than most.

I wish this forum had likes and hearts to reply to each of these great comments. The feedback is all so valuable I can’t imagine planning a trip without all this info. Like someone here mentioned, you’ve answered questions to questions I didn’t even know that I had! Thank you Pam and to all of you!